As Close As You'll Ever Get
by Hannalore Dayne
Summary: "Just tell her what happened," Lex told Clark back in Episode 2. Well, he finally did, and it may have been the worst mistake of his life...
1. Tell Her

The door was in front of him. It just stood there, embedded in the wall, as if it had nothing better to do. _You're going insane,_ he told himself. He was really going insane. The door wasn't doing anything to him. He needed to stop picking on it. _You need to stop acting like it's alive,_ he told himself fiercely. _Just knock on the thing._ Hesitantly his hand extended and touched the door, so softly that even he knew that no one inside could hear him. He knocked again, more confidently. The door rattled on its hinges a bit. _Easy,_ he cautioned himself. The door opened.

Nell's surprised face peered out. Her luminescent eyes were so like Lana's that for a moment his heart felt a pang. "Clark?" she asked.

"Mrs. Lang," he said.

"Sweetie, it's always been Nell," she said fondly. "Come in! Come in."

He was ushered inside and instructed to wait for Lana. Nervously he looked around the living room. Everything was in cream with flowers, the walls glowing with various lace-edged lamps. What wood was left underneath all the floral patterns was dark red and glossy; the carpet was a wall-to-wall milk spill. The whole room screamed Nell, and somehow it didn't put him at ease. The only thing keeping him in this house was Lex's voice, echoing through his mind: _Just tell her what happened._ It had been weeks and his uncomfortable friendship with Lana was fading away. He was desperate. He had to do something- losing her, even a little bit, would kill him.

"Clark?"

He looked up. There she was. Green eyes innocent and focused, perfect, glossy lips smiling at him. He opened his mouth to speak. His words caught in his throat.

"Nell told me you were down here," she said unnecessarily. She frowned curiously, obviously uncomfortable. His heart twisted to see her unease with him. "Not to throw your words back at you," she said, "but we've lived a mile apart our whole lives, and…"

"And I've never come over," he finished. "I know. I just…" He struggled to organize his thoughts. She was looking at him, confused and apprehensive, and he was choking. _Say something, _he demanded of himself. "You… haven't been wearing your necklace lately," he rushed with relief, realizing that he wasn't feeling sick.

"Oh, I have it," she said. "W-"

He cut her off desperately. "I wasn't sure you'd see it, on the door like that." He knew what she had been about to say, and he knew he couldn't contradict her. If he had let her say that Whitney returned the necklace, then he wouldn't have said otherwise, and what he was trying to do would have failed.

Her eyes widened. "What?"

He tried to affect innocence. "I wasn't sure you'd see the necklace. I- I know I should have just stayed at the door, but I was kind of nervous…" _Like now,_ he thought. "I'm sorry. It was stupid. You might have never gotten it back."

There. It was out. Now he just had to deal with her reaction. "_You_ gave me my necklace back?" She repeated, shocked.

He nodded, furrowing his brows to look slightly confused. Then he cleared his expression. "Oh…" he said. "Of course. You thought it was Whitney." His mouth twisted bitterly. He didn't have to act for that.

She shook her head, still shocked. "Yeah, I… how did you get it?" she asked, looking at him with sudden apprehension.

He had stopped acting. He looked at her uncomfortably. "When… when Whitney, um…" She understood what he was implying, so he went on. "He tied it around my neck." He kept talking right through her outrage, determined to finish the story. "He told me…" he looked straight into her eyes. "He told me it was the closest I'd ever get to you."

Lana stared at him. Then she closed the distance between them and hugged him, tight. He didn't move. She stepped back. "I am so sorry," she said. "I can't believe it." She shook her head, caught between anger and grief. She drew in a breath, and he saw that she was close to tears. "I don't know whether to kill him or dump him," she said. She smiled bitterly. "Maybe I'll try a combination of both."

"Listen," Clark said, suddenly feeling guilty. "Don't be too hard on Whitney-"

"Why not?" she asked. Her unshed tears had morphed to daggers in her eyes. "He _gave _my necklace to someone else _without_ asking me and with no thought for my wishes, and then he lied to me about it! Well," she amended reluctantly, "he just didn't _tell_ me." The sarcasm that touched her words didn't match her face, and Clark suddenly felt that coming to Lana had been a mistake. "I'm going to call him right now."

"I'd better go," he said, feeling terrible.

"No," Lana said firmly, grabbing his wrist before he could go. "I want you to be here. Stay," she instructed, letting go of him and going into the kitchen. He heard her dialing the phone. _Stupid, stupid, stupid,_ he told himself. _How could you? Now she hates Whitney and she still doesn't like you any better._

"Whitney?" Lana said in the other room. "It's me."

He shook his head and rubbed a hand across his eyes. He could leave. But in her current mood, he was almost sure she'd take it the wrong way. No, he had to fix the mess he'd started.


	2. What He Meant

"Who do you think told me?" Lana snapped. There was a pause. "No, he's not. He went home." They were talking about him now, and she had just lied to Whitney. _My fault,_ he thought. _Add it to the list_. He squinted slightly, and looked through the living room wall. Lana was pacing violently in the kitchen, hair flying, hand pressed to the phone. "No! How could you do this to me, Whitney- no, _you_ listen. How could you do this _to my friend_?" Clark shifted, heart aching. 

Lana put a hand to her forehead. "Whitney, I really don't want to hear your excuses. I'm feeling… I'm feeling a little unreasonable right now," she said, her voice filled with tremors, "so I'm going to hang up, and when I get to school tomorrow, you had better- _you had better_," She was raising her voice, presumably against his protests, "be able to explain… everything!" She took the phone away from her ear and pressed a button viciously. Clark quickly took his eyes away and tried to act like he was doing something else as she came through the doorway.

"I'm sorry," she said, brushing hair away from her eyes. "Temper tantrum over." She smiled thinly.

"I should really go," he said, turning halfway towards the door.

"Please stay," Lana said. He froze in his tracks. He was becoming alarmed- he didn't know why she had turned so strange. He didn't like it. "Please. I really want to make up for what Whitney did and I know I can't make it better, but-" She looked at him, half hopeful, face flushed from her anger. "Will you stay for dinner?"

His mouth opened. He tried to say something. His throat had frozen and he couldn't tell her that he wanted to stay, that he wanted to stay forever but he couldn't do it and feel right.

"Please," she said. "I know I'm being stubborn, but… bear with me?"

What could he do? He couldn't say no to that upturned, beautiful countenance.

Dinner was awkward and uncomfortable. Nell didn't know why Lana was upset, and she wasn't going to ask while Clark was around. Lana wasn't going to tell her, either, and so after a phone call to the bewildered but acquiescent Kents, Clark was eating chicken stir-fry with Lana and Nell.

"So," Nell tried, after an eerie silence, "how have you been, Clark? How's school treating you?"

"Fine," he said. His food was mostly untouched. "School's fun."

"That's good to hear," she said, smiling wider than necessary. "Most kids these days hate everything about school… and life," she joked.

Lana and Clark laughed half-heartedly.

Nell put down her fork. "All right. It's none of my business, but what is going on? As a parent, I hate feeling out of the loop."

Lana swallowed and shrugged. "Whitney was a jerk at Clark's expense. I haven't decided whether to forgive him or not yet."

Nell raised her eyebrows. "So you're keeping Clark within arm's reach until you know what to do with _him_?" Her tone was light, but Clark heard the tiny rebuke.

Lana looked at her aunt frankly. "What Whitney did was nearly unforgivable." Clark started to protest, but she cut him off. "I'm just trying to…" she searched for the words. "Pay reparations, in a way. I'm sure Clark doesn't mind."

They both looked at him. "Oh," he said. He looked down at his plate. "Wouldn't want to miss out on this food," he joked weakly. His laugh was water-thin and he felt severely self-conscious.

"All right then," said Nell, recognizing a dead-end when she saw one. "We'll talk about it later."

Lana just took another bite with a glance at Clark.

The rest of dinner was uncomfortable and tense. Clark never thought that spending an hour with Lana would have been so unpleasant. When everyone was done, he offered to do the dishes, and Lana instantly volunteered as well. They stacked the plates and went to the kitchen. The weird tension hung between them like a speech barrier, and the plates were washed in silence. Somewhere around the second fork, Lana finally spoke.

"I'm sorry," she said."

Clark put the fork in the dishwasher. "For what?" he asked, just to make sure.

"I shouldn't have made you stay. It wasn't fair. You came to me with nothing but concern for my well being, and I-" she looked up at him. "I didn't have any consideration for yours. I'm sorry."

"It's fine," he said, lying just a little. "I always enjoy spending time with you, even if it's just washing dishes."

She knew he was avoiding the issue, but she smiled a bit sadly anyway. "Thanks, Clark. You're sweet." Suddenly her face changed as she thought of something. "Clark… what did Whitney mean when he said that you'd never get close to me?" An unspoken answer played on her face, but she refused to voice it.

Clark wanted more than anything to run, to turn right then and run as fast as only he could. "I'm sure…" he tried. "I'm sure Whitney just misunderstood. Overreacted. You know how he is." He sounded so lame that he almost cringed. The knife in his hand bent under his fingers, and he quickly jerked it straight and put it away.

"If you say so," Lana said. She didn't believe a word he was saying, but he wasn't sure she understood what Whitney had meant, either. Maybe she didn't want to understand.


	3. Never Again

The rest of the dishes were put away in silence. Nell tried to jumpstart a conversation, but Clark refused to talk. He was afraid of what he would say. There was nothing left to do, so Nell offered to drive Clark home.

"Thanks all the same, Nell," he said. "I'll walk."

She shrugged. "All right. It was nice to see you, Clark. You should come over more often."

__

Never again, he promised her silently. "I will," he said. Nell smiled.

"I'll walk you out," Lana offered.

He said nothing, so she followed him out the door.

It was dark outside. The porch light was on, attracting moths like planets to a sun.

Lana turned as soon as the door was closed and kissed him.

Something exploded beneath his eyelids and he stepped back, heart racing a million miles an hour.

"That _was_ what he meant, wasn't it? Whitney?" Lana was short of breath too, though he was sure it was more exhilaration than what he was feeling.

"Lana, please…" he swallowed hard. He wouldn't stop her. He knew he wouldn't. If she kissed him he would kiss her back and the next day Whitney's life would be over.

"I am so stupid," she said, shaking her head with a laugh. "I can't believe I didn't see it before. Comes from shaking pom-poms too much, I'm sure Chloe would say. She knew. So did Lex. I think everyone knew, everyone but me." She was babbling, and he realized that her emotions from the Whitney situation were carrying over. This wasn't her.

"Lana-"

She didn't give him a chance to finish. Lips on his, arms wrapped around his neck, she destroyed with just a moment his determination to leave.

His arms were around her back. He didn't remember putting them there, nor did he remember when he began to kiss her back. His blood was pounding and his face was flushed and he couldn't remember why he had wanted to leave a minute ago. Her hands were splayed on his neck, tongues of fire on his skin. His own hands could do nothing but crush her close, desperate to hold on, irrationally frightened that at any moment she would disappear and he would be dreaming it all.

"Clark," she whispered when he finally withdrew to catch his breath. "What am I doing?"

It was like someone had just thrown him into a lake of pure ice. He was totally speechless; he just stood there, arms frozen around her waist.

She stepped away and his arms fell like rocks, like magnets with an opposite charge to Lana's. "I can't believe I…" Lana looked away. "Clark, you'd better go."

Still unable to speak, Clark wanted to scream, "No! No, I want to stay, don't make me go…" But he walked off the porch, and every step was knives in his feet. He didn't look back, didn't want to see Lana's guilty, self-disgusted face. He thought he heard her whisper "I'm sorry," but he wasn't sure. The darkness of night closed in on him and when he was out of hearing range, the lump in his throat burned his eyes and made them overflow. Round the bend, past the trees and he was gone, a dismal streak in the air that couldn't run far enough, trailing tears in his wake.

__

It's as close as you'll ever get to her…


End file.
